After Hours | Solo Exhibition by Emme Hyesun '26 (CCS Art)
I’m thrilled to share my first solo exhibition with you! I would love to see you at the opening and/or closing reception for a series of paintings I made this year. We will be celebrating (with coffee, wine, food, and chat) : ) this Saturday, April 11th, 9-10 am and next Wednesday, April 15th, 5 - 7 pm . The show is up through the week 8am - 6pm, I’ll see you there!
—Emme Hyesun '26 (CCS Art)
April 11 - April 15 2026
Coffee Reception: Saturday April 11, 2026, 9 - 10 am
Closing Reception: Wednesday April 15, 2026, 5 - 7pm
After Hours is a series of paintings that glimpse into the artist's kitchen. The acts of cooking and the transformation of the kitchen are reflective of the personalities and emotional needs of the artist’s friends. The paintings are reminiscent of illustrated storybooks, framing the people, the furnishings, and the occasional cat as central characters captured in a still moment outside of work, school, and the business of life. Decorative in their arrangement, the work is often made up of close croppings of hands, glasses, and domestic objects. Time is depicted as a cycle throughout the work, through the messes made in the kitchen and occurring throughout life’s patterns. Stove light, a small self-portrait, can be read as both an act of removing the pot or setting it down. It is a quiet gesture that signals both a conclusion and the beginning of the day’s cycle once again.
Emme Hyesun (b. 2004, Oakland, CA) is a painter based in Oakland and Santa Barbara. She is completing her B.A. in Art at the University of California Santa Barbara’s College of Creative Studies with a painting emphasis. Her paintings organize elements of her household into narrative scenes of cooking, eating, and cycles of living. She uses scale, color, and markmaking to create a sense of magical realism in otherwise ordinary scenes. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions across San Francisco, Oakland, and Santa Barbara, including the de Young Museum, OAKSTOP Gallery, the Glass Box Gallery, the AD&A Museum, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. She is concluding her study of Art at UCSB with a solo exhibition, After Hours, in the College of Creative Studies Art Gallery, and is beginning her career as a painter in Los Angeles.